Re: Minnesota Valley regional rail (Shakopee, Mankato, beyond)
Posted: April 5th, 2016, 10:25 pm
An update on this project:
http://www.mankatofreepress.com/news/ma ... 3094e.html
Talks about starting with bus service between Mankato and Shakopee. I'm guessing travelers would connect to/from the MVTA at one of the park & ride stations? Would make more sense for a one-seat ride to/from Minneapolis or St. Paul. And instead of regional rail on UP's Mankato Subdivision, the leader of the Highway 169 Corridor Coalition wants light rail on Highway 169 all the way to Mankato, citing delays from freight trains causing reliability problems for the Northstar (even though those problems have been mostly taken care of, and the easy and cheaper thing to do would be to improve the UP tracks so there is less conflict).
I'd like to see regional rail from New Ulm and Mankato to both Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Minnesota Valley LRT Regional Trail ROW would be used for trains going to/from Minneapolis. This was Union Pacific's Chaska Spur until the trestle over the Minnesota River collapsed from flooding in 2007 (?). The rest of the right-of-way east of Chaska was abandoned in 1991 by the Chicago & Northwestern.
http://www.mankatofreepress.com/news/ma ... 3094e.html
Talks about starting with bus service between Mankato and Shakopee. I'm guessing travelers would connect to/from the MVTA at one of the park & ride stations? Would make more sense for a one-seat ride to/from Minneapolis or St. Paul. And instead of regional rail on UP's Mankato Subdivision, the leader of the Highway 169 Corridor Coalition wants light rail on Highway 169 all the way to Mankato, citing delays from freight trains causing reliability problems for the Northstar (even though those problems have been mostly taken care of, and the easy and cheaper thing to do would be to improve the UP tracks so there is less conflict).
I'd like to see regional rail from New Ulm and Mankato to both Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Minnesota Valley LRT Regional Trail ROW would be used for trains going to/from Minneapolis. This was Union Pacific's Chaska Spur until the trestle over the Minnesota River collapsed from flooding in 2007 (?). The rest of the right-of-way east of Chaska was abandoned in 1991 by the Chicago & Northwestern.